New York Times Whitewashes Yet Another Top Anti-Gay Group. Why?

Two years ago, the New York Times, as The New Civil Rights Movementreported then, “published a 1232 word glowing tribute to the anti-gay, anti-Islam SPLC-certified hate group, American Family Association, without any mention of the official hate group designation.”

Today, the Times forgot that lesson in journalistic malpractice, and published a whitewashed look at Focus On The Family, an organization that, while not a certified hate group, was created by anti-gay hate group founder and LGBT-demonizer Dr. James Dobson– who also founded the more rabid anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council, now headed by Tony Perkins.

There’s no doubt people, and organizations, can change — some things. But there’s no way a rabidly anti-gay group, regardless of whatever new marketing they use, can stop being a rabidly anti-gay source of hated that contributes to the dramatically high rate of LGBT youth and teen suicide.

Freedman writes a slim profile of Focus On The Family president Jim Daly, whom he claims is trying “to turn down the rhetorical temperature on the debate” on LGBT people, same-sex marriage, and other civil rights issues.

“We’ve created an animosity,” he said in one emblematic moment of self-criticism. “We’ve said we hate the sin and love the sinner. But when you peel it back, sometimes we hated the sinner, too. And that’s not the Gospel.”

Oh, indeed you have.

Daly, not so long ago, said legalizing same-sex marriage would bring down civilization. A year later, Daly characterized the work of LGBT activists as “fascism.”

And just last year, Right Wing Watch reported that “Daly claimed that Satan himself is promoting same-sex marriage since ‘he hates marriage because it’s a reflection of God’s image.’ ‘The Enemy hates that, it’s disgusting to him,’ Daly said, “and with that, he wants to break it down, he wants to destroy it.’”

Apparently, the Times didn’t have the column inches to include those quotes, or the time to do any research.

To this day, Focus On The Family’s website promotes so-called “ex-gay” reparative therapy that has been deemed harmful by major medical organizations, as in their publication, Homosexuality Resources.

And then there’s Focus On The Family’s position statement on Civil Unions, Domestic Partnerships, and Reciprocal Beneficiary Contracts:

Focus on the Family maintains that the institution of marriage is intended by God to be a relationship between the two halves of humanity: a man and a woman. Further, nature attempts to provide every child with a mother and a a father, and social science agrees that this is the family structure in which children thrive. For these reasons, we oppose any other legal definition of marriage.

The articulated goal of the homosexual‐bisexual‐transgender advocacy movement is same‐sex marriage. In the meantime, it has been clearly stated that Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships are stepping stones to that end. Given the goal of redefining marriage, Focus on the Family opposes the legal creation of Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships as counterfeit policy attempts to imitate marriage. We further do not support the creation of special categories of rights based on sexual expression or gender identity.

Focus on the Family’s position is strengthened by threats to the religious liberty rights of groups that disagree with this movement. In some instances, faith‐based adoption and foster care agencies have decided to stop offering services due to the passage of civil union (or same‐sex marriage) laws that require these agencies to place children in same‐sex households — an act that would violate the organization’s religious views.

Additionally, we view Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships as discriminatory. Civil union and Domestic partnership arrangements are based on sexual expression and are therefore unfair to non‐ sexual domestic situations with equally legitimate claims to contractual provisions. Government policies should not discriminate against any member of society in regard to housing, employment, inheritance rights or medical decision‐making.

Caring for unmarried members of society does not require the redefinition of one‐man, one‐woman marriage. In lieu of Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships, a better approach may be Reciprocal Beneficiary Contracts that streamline existing benefits found in contract law, such as legal arrangements to co‐own or inherit property, medical visitation and decision‐making, guardianship of children, and medical benefits, if an employer allows. Such arrangements are equally available to any persons in domestic circumstances who do not qualify to marry. Furthermore, these contracts are not premised on the rights or privileges of marriage, sexual expression or gender identity.

Homosexuality is a controversial issue today not because of an epidemic of hate toward gays but because activists have used a small number of reprehensible acts of violence against homosexuals to press for a government-imposed “normalization” of the homosexual lifestyle. This movement, breathtaking in its audacity and aided by a number of favor- able court decisions, is steamrolling over the moral traditions of Western civilization. All objections are labeled as “hate” and used as further evidence that more government action is needed.

The Times piece does point to Focus On The Family’s Citizen Link action center, which features these assaults on same-sex couples and LGBT people: